Sitting on my chest

I was a sickly child,
always breathing,
a bronchial battering
spun under control
by inhalers that popped
and whizzed
spinning powder down my tubes,
always pounding.

Violet had an ice-cream van,
our dog used to bite the tyres
it smelled of sprinkles and sherbet,
and I knew how he felt.
"They make your chest bad,
stupid lad"
and they did,
so I stayed off school.
Action Man zip wires,
parachutes
and wet suits
ski gear and shaved hair
eagle eye and facial scar
a bridge too far?

Mum said cider ones
with all their E's
were probably the worst,
strawberry mivies might be ok
but whose to say
best to keep the vice at bay.

No one seemed to notice or care
about the clumps of white dog-hair
and that I was left to play,
in a house with a habit
of nearly forty fags a day,
always breathing.